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May 22, 2017 by Jen Kaplan

Everything you need to know about the new Apple School Manager

Learn what's new with Apple School Manager.

Exciting news for the education world: Apple School Manager is out of preview and available for all schools! Since the initial announcement of Apple School Manager and iOS 9.3, Apple has been working diligently with schools to collect feedback and incorporate updates to their centralized web-based portal that matter most to education. At Jamf, we serve more than 4,000 education institutions worldwide and we’re equally excited about what’s new in Apple School Manager this week:

A brand-new user interface

The overall experience of Apple School Manager has changed, but it’s not just a pretty face. The enhancements to Apple School Manager’s UI changes make everything easier for people to do. It’s not only easier to navigate, but the organization and management of accounts, classes and roles is inherently more intuitive.

Search and filtering enhancements


Searching and reporting on accounts, classes, and more is easier than ever before. The ability to search users and devices, including the ability to filter people by class, allows schools to keep pace with student and institutional changes. It’s also easier than ever to see which accounts are tied to each role.

Apple School Manager already integrates with many popular Student Information Systems to automatically import schools’ roster data, including SunGARD eSchoolPLUS, and Infinite Campus. This release introduces support for another popular SIS: Powerschool. Read more about SIS integrations here.

Streamlined student and passcode management


Also new is the ability to download an entire CSV of Managed Apple IDs, making tasks like assigning Managed Apple IDs and passcodes to students during back-to-school deployments faster and easier. And, the timing for new features to quickly delete Managed Apple IDs couldn’t be better. As students graduate this spring, they can easily be removed from the system. Schools also gain the ability to mass customize the account status across multiple accounts at once with the ability to multi-select and edit groups of accounts. Organizations outside of the U.S. will benefit from the ability to localize passcode reset emails in their language of choice, offering a more personalized experience for end users.

Reporting and access improvements


Schools spoke and Apple listened. Schools are now able to add up to five administrator accounts within Apple School Manager, expanding the scope with which large schools are able share account management responsibilities. And, with the introduction of Activity view, administrators gain a central hub to view all bulk operations and activities, including those that run in the background.

Check out the Apple release notes for information on everything Apple released this week: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207191

Don’t miss our webinar next Thursday: Tactical Tips for Your Apple School Manager Deployment. We’ll examine the core concepts of the Apple ecosystem and show you the role Apple School Manager plays in device deployment, integrating with your Student Information System and shifting from traditional to Managed Apple IDs. Register here.

Jamf Pro integrates with Apple School Manager to to automate and simplify device deployments for schools. Education workflows are greatly improved with the integration, giving IT a single reference point for all of their deployment and ongoing management needs. Check out the video or contact us at any time: Apple School Manager.

Jen Kaplan
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